There is no shortage of stories told about the Florida Keys. One Upper Keys favorite that has been passed from barstool to barstool for a long time is the origin of the Tavernier name.
As the story goes, a thirsty sailor came ashore at the southern, Atlantic-facing edge of Key Largo and asked, “Is there a tavern near?”
It is not a true story; it is a good story. There are those, too, who say the name is of French origin; tavernier is the word for innkeeper. While the sailor’s story is colorful nonsense, French might have something to do with the name’s evolution from its Spanish roots. However, it seems more like a linguistic journey than a cultural one.
As for local names, the origin of Tavernier is one of the oldest found along the island chain – though it both looked and sounded a bit different several hundred years ago. Before Tavernier was a name attached to a Key Largo community, it identified the 31-acre island in the Atlantic shallows just offshore. On a Spanish chart dated 1639, it was noted as Caio di Tabanos; in 1742, Cayo Tabanos.
The rough translation of tabanos, from Spanish to English, is horsefly; so, Horsefly Key.
One thing that all of the 1,700 islands making up the Florida Keys archipelago have in common is biting insects. Apparently, Tavernier Key was once known for big, biting tabanos.
The transition from Tabano to Tavernier had a lot to do with how the “b” is pronounced in Spanish. It is given a “v” sound. To an English ear, Tabanos would have sounded like Tavanos, which helps explain why William Roberts’ work “First Discovery and Natural History of Florida” (1763) identified the island as Cayo de Tivanos. A dozen years later, in 1775, a chart by George Gauld identified the island by both its Spanish and English names: Cayo Tabano and Key Tavernier. As for any French influence, the evolution of Tabano to Tivano to Tavernier does not seem like an uncomfortable stretch – especially when spoken with a French accent.
One thing that Tavernier Key offered was a relatively deep natural harbor, frequently used by sailors and those engaged in the wrecking industry. On Oct. 8, 1836, the crew of a schooner navigated to the harbor and dropped their anchor for the night. By 1836, the second escalation of the Seminole War had made an impact in South Florida and the Keys. That day, Indians attacked the schooner; its crew was lucky to escape with their lives.
While they all lived to tell the tale, not all survived unscathed. Two of the crew were wounded in the attack but paddled to safety in one of the smaller auxiliary boats. Left abandoned, the schooner was looted of anything useful and then set afire until the waterline extinguished the blaze.
Tavernier Key needed something more than a favorable harbor to lure the early pioneers who decided to anchor their ships and create something more permanent. It might have had something to do with horseflies. Mostly, however, it had to do with land, and Key Largo had a relative abundance of it. A couple of decades later, pioneer families began settling along the Key Largo shoreline and building lives.
They were farmers and fishermen who relied on long, narrow docks and shallow draft schooners to link them to the outside world. Along the southern edge of the island, the first families were the Lowes, Alburys and Johnsons. They built homes facing the Atlantic to take advantage of ocean breezes blowing through open windows to cool their dwellings and provide a primitive form of flying/biting pest control.
In the late 1800s, the community wasn’t called Tavernier, but Planter. Tavernier, as it is applied to Key Largo, came about as a result of the Key West Extension of Henry Flagler’s East Coast Railway. When workers built the train station in the area of MM 92, it was named Tavernier Station. The Tavernier community grew up around it. Hurricanes and Flagler’s train encouraged the residents of Planter to move away from the shoreline and the docks, and closer to the conveniences and reliability of the railroad. The Planter Post Office and church moved closer to the people who relied on the institutions. Planter faded away, and Tavernier took root.
Little remains of the old Planter community, except for a cistern or two in the hammocks surrounding Harry Harris Park and a short road branching off Burton Drive called Planter Drive that pays homage to the old farming community. There is also a popular coffee shop that used to stand on the Albury homestead and service the Planter community.
The building where the coffee shop is housed was built in Planter and served as its Methodist church. A transfer deed for the property where the church once stood was signed and dated Nov. 25, 1887. Robert and Patience Albury transferred the property to the trustees of Methodist Episcopal Church, South: Amos Lowe, Samuel Johnson and Robert Albury. The church was called Barnetts Chapel.
When the community relocated closer to the railroad right-of-way, Barnetts Chapel was deconstructed and moved to better serve the people. Though the building was destroyed in the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, its pieces and timbers were gathered, along with lumber from other structures that were destroyed, and reassembled. When the church found a better home, the building was left unoccupied. For a time, it served as a Masonic lodge.
In 1981, the Old Tavernier Town Association formed and purchased the building for $1,000. They paid much more to move it to its present location, where it first served as the Old Church Community Center and Visitor Center. Currently, it is home to Café Moka at 91713 Overseas Highway. Step inside for a cup of coffee, a croissant and a cool bit of local history.
